President Donald Trump joined his former lawyer and nemesis Michael Cohen for a radio interview that will air in part tonight.
You won’t find Todd Blanche on the ticket for 2028, the attorney general told NBC News today.
Asked if he was running for president, Blanche said that he was not and that he “couldn’t be more sure” of that decision. He gave his answer while in Des Moines for the Iowa State Fair, a battleground state historically known for serving as an early stop for presidential candidates.
“Just to re-emphasize again, I am not running for president,” Blanche said, after declining to comment on the FBI search of former California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s house.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Blanche’s fellow Cabinet member, made a stop in Iowa this week, too, appearing with GOP Rep. Zach Nunn, who is running for re-election.
“Good afternoon, I heard you missed me,” first lady Melania Trump told the audience at a Rose Garden event this afternoon where she is announcing an expansion of her program that provides opportunities to people transitioning out of foster care.
This is her first public appearance since the World Cup final on July 19 and her first remarks since June 11.
An NBC News analysis found that the first lady has kept a lower profile during her second term in the role, attending about half as many public events as she did during the president’s first term.
Melania Trump announced that she is expanding her “Foster the Future” initiative with a $2 million donation from Fox Corp. and IndyCar, which is set to have its Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington this weekend. The donation will fund scholarships at Indiana University and Purdue University, the first lady’s office said today, making them the 25th and 26th academic institutions to take part in the initiative. She shared that the initiative “supported the education of our first doctor” last spring.
“He will change the lives of so many people,” the first lady said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., endorsed state Rep. Angie Nixon today after her stunning victory in the Democratic primary race for a Senate seat in Florida.
“Angie Nixon is proof that organized people can take on organized money — and win. Outspent more than 16 to 1, she won in a landslide,” Sanders said in a post on X. “Working people all over this country are sick and tired of status quo politics and status quo policies. They want change, real change.”
Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won the primary on Tuesday in a major upset over Alex Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran who was recruited to run by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Vindman raised $16 million for his campaign, while Nixon raked in just $900,000.
“Senator Bernie Sanders has been a champion for working people his entire career, and I’m proud to have stood alongside him in 2016 and to carry that fight forward today,” Nixon said in her own post on X.
Florida Democrats have failed to win a Senate race since 2012. The party hopes to change that this year, in what is expected to be a competitive midterm cycle.
Former Rep. Eric Swalwell had his electronic devices seized and his home searched by the FBI over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. Jeff Chiu / AP
The former Democratic California congressman was stopped by the FBI at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, and his electronic devices were taken as part of the execution of a search warrant, the person said.
Agents searched his home in Washington, D.C., the following day, the person said, adding that both actions are related to an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Swalwell.
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How many nuclear weapons does Kim Jong Un have? South Korea suggested today that the number is far higher than the 57 “very powerful nuclear weapons” cited publicly by Trump — and that it prefers to avoid public discussion of such sensitive details about the threat from its reclusive neighbor.
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The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration today, over what it believes is the withholding of documents related to any planned investigatory efforts related to ballots, voting machines and the upcoming midterm elections.
“Following the seizure of archived ballots from Fulton County, Georgia—and seeking to ensure that the Trump Administration does not attempt unprecedented abuses of criminal law enforcement tools to undermine upcoming elections—the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to components of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning any planned seizure of ballots, voting machines, and other voting system components,” DNC attorney Daniel Freeman wrote.
Election workers count Fulton County ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta in 2020. Jessica McGowan / Getty Images file
The DNC says five months after the FOIA request was filed, it has yet to receive any responsive documents. It says it hasn’t even received a list of documents withheld under statutory exemptions.
“By withholding responsive documents past statutory deadlines, DOJ is violating FOIA,” Freeman wrote.
It’s asking a federal judge to order the Justice Department to conduct searches for any and all responsive records to the DNC’s FOIA requests in a timely manner.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., today endorsed Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., as Markey runs for re-election against a younger House Democrat, Rep. Seth Moulton, who is calling for generational change.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., at the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention on May 30. John Tlumacki / Boston Globe via Getty Images file
“At a time when powerful special interests are making life harder for everyday Americans, Massachusetts working families need a champion in the U.S. Senate to stand up for them and fight corporate greed,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. She added, “[Markey’s] work is an inspiration to many of us who are committed to building a better future for all, and that’s why I’m proud to endorse him.”
The endorsement is a boost for Markey’s campaign, though the progressive senator has been leading in recent polls of the race, pushing back against Moulton’s argument that Markey, 80, is too old to serve another term.
On Tuesday, the Boston Globe’s editorial board endorsed Moulton’s campaign, centering on the congressman’s call for generational change in the Democratic Party.
“This is not a call for change for change’s sake, or an endorsement of youth for the sake of youth alone,” the board wrote. “Moulton has proven leadership skills that will serve him well if he reaches the Senate, and his positions on major issues — including health care, the cost of living, and foreign policy — have been consistent with the values of most Massachusetts voters and this board.”
Moulton, 47, and Markey are set to spar tonight in their final debate before the Sept. 1 primary.
Young progressive candidates have ousted several incumbent Democrats in federal primary races so far this cycle, including in Colorado and Connecticut House races this summer. But in Massachusetts, which Markey has represented in Washington for almost 50 years, the senator has sharpened his progressive bona fides, highlighting his support for the renewable energy proposals known as the Green New Deal and for universal health care, dubbed “Medicare for All.”
Markey has also put a spotlight on Moulton’s comments — which he has since walked back — in the wake of the 2024 presidential election opposing transgender girls’ participation in girls sports and criticizing Democrats for being “afraid” of taking that stance on the issue.
Markey has also been endorsed by other progressive stalwarts, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Trump joined his former lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen for a radio interview today in what Cohen is billing as a potential rapprochement.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former attorney. Angela Weiss / AFP-Getty Images
The conversation was pretaped this morning and will air in part tonight at 6 p.m. ET on WABC radio. The rest will air on Cohen’s Sunday night radio show, “When You Know, You Know,” also on WABC.
In a Substack post ahead of the interview titled “The Impossible Reunion,” Cohen acknowledged his tumultuous relationship with Trump and how he found “forgiveness.”
Cohen wrote that people keep asking him the same question about the interview: “How can two men who spent years in a very public war, who hurled verbal missiles across an enormous legal and political canyon, ever sit down together again?”
“The answer is actually much simpler than people want it to be. We forgave. Not because the past didn’t happen. Not because the scars disappeared. Not because every disagreement suddenly became irrelevant. And certainly not because I have forgotten anything. I haven’t,” he wrote.
“Today, at 6 p.m. on 77WABC, you’re going to hear something I suspect many people once believed was impossible,” he added. “The two of us will sit down and have a discussion.”
Cohen, Trump’s lawyer and so-called fixer for more than a decade, had pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion and campaign finance violations tied to payments made to silence women who alleged they had affairs with Trump. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 and then served as the prosecution’s star witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s 2024 criminal hush money case against Trump.
Trump denied the alleged affairs and any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business records to cover up the payments, which prosecutors alleged were aimed at keeping the affair allegations secret during the 2016 presidential election.
Trump was convicted of the charges, which he has appealed.
Michael Cohen spoke to Trump this morning for 40 minutes over the phone in an interview that will air partly tonight at 6 p.m. The full interview will air Sunday night at 6 p.m. on Michael Cohen’s radio show, “When You Know, You Know.”
Cohen is keeping a tight lid on what was said until it airs tonight but told NBC News: “There are things that he said to me that I have never heard before. It was a great interview, and people will be shocked when they hear it.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged South Korea not to take sides between Beijing and Washington, saying the U.S. should abandon its “hostile” policy toward North Korea to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun yesterday. Xinhua / Shutterstock
Wang made the remarks in a meeting with South Korean National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac in Seoul today, Chinese state media reported, where he also met South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
“The fundamental solution to the tensions on the Korean Peninsula lies in addressing the root causes of the problem and urging the United States to abandon its hostile policy toward North Korea,” Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, cited Wang as saying.
Read the full story here.
Vice President JD Vance confirmed in a post to X that White House Legislative Director James Braid is leaving the administration.
“He has served the President with distinction and I couldn’t be prouder of him,” Vance said in the post. “Very excited to see what he does next.”
The White House legislative director serves as the administration’s point person for working to pass the president’s priorities through Congress.
Vance credited Braid with playing a “critical role in all of the administration’s achievements” in the GOP-led Congress, pointing to the sweeping tax cut and spending bill that Republicans passed last year, funding for Trump’s immigration priorities and negotiations with Democrats to end two government shutdowns.
Braid’s departure comes just months before the midterm elections, when party control of the House or Senate could change.
Politico previously reported that Braid, a former senior aide in Vance’s Senate office, would be leaving the administration.
Trump will do “a lap of honor around the course” in the president’s vehicle, known as the “beast,” at Sunday’s IndyCar race in downtown Washington, a White House official confirmed today.
First lady Melania Trump and other members of Trump’s family will be in attendance at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, and there “will be flyovers,” the official added.
The New York Post was first to report on the president’s planned lap around the track.
Trump is also set to wave the green flag at the start of the race, Penske Corp. President Bud Denker said in a video posted to X by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy yesterday. Duffy will wave the checkered flag at the end of the race.
A Missouri judge has allowed new U.S. House districts backed by Trump to be used in the November elections, rejecting a bid to put the Republican-friendly districts to a statewide vote of the people.
Protesters against a Missouri congressional redistricting plan gather outside the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson on May 12. David A. Lieb / AP file
The ruling yesterday by Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green is a victory for Republicans seeking to hold on to their slim majority in the U.S. House. But the case is likely to end up in the state Supreme Court.
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Total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said yesterday, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety-net programs and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.
A billboard showing the U.S. national debt in Washington, D.C., yesterday. Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images
The Treasury’s latest daily cash and debt balances statement showed total public debt outstanding at $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, a total that includes Treasury securities held by the public of $32.266 trillion and intragovernmental debt holdings of $7.782 trillion.
The federal government’s IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $19.95 trillion when Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017. Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the Covid-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, with the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combining with long-running tax-and-spending imbalances to account for the rest.
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Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., acknowledged last night that she “tripped up” during a debate when she said national security was “not my thing,” prompting a wave of questions about her qualifications to hold on to her seat for a full term.
Sen. Darline Graham during a debate in Newberry, S.C., on Tuesday. Peter Zay / Anadolu via Getty Images
“I’ve said many times I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician. I don’t speak politician. I was just honest, and I think that’s kind of a foreign concept,” Graham said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Graham’s flub came as Newsmax moderator Greta Van Susteren asked whether she viewed Taiwan and the South China Sea as priorities. Graham avoided directly answering the question, saying that while national security was not her strong suit, “I do support the military.”
She told Hannity tonight that she talked to several people across the state after the debate and that they were “concerned about a lot of other things other than Taiwan,” listing voter concerns about the Second Amendment, the SAVE America Act and immigration.
“Of course Taiwan is our friend, but I think people in South Carolina are more worried about making ends meet,” Graham added.
Hannity downplayed the significance of Graham’s debate response, saying he did not think the majority of Americans could identify Taiwan on a map, to which Graham said he was “100% right.”
Graham has said she will focus on “kitchen table issues” more than her brother, Lindsey Graham, did.
Mike Lindell, a fierce Trump ally and the founder of MyPillow, says he’s willing to foot the bill for a full recount in Minnesota’s GOP primary for governor — a race he lost this month by 11 percentage points.
CEO of MyPillow Mike Lindell. Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images
In a brief phone call with NBC News yesterday, Lindell said that he had hired his own team to begin investigating the Aug. 11 Republican primary, which NBC News projects state House Speaker Lisa Demuth won, and that he had reached out to the Minnesota secretary of state’s office to ask for a cost estimate for a recount.
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Trump warned of economic consequences against any country that provided “any type of lifeline to Iran“ as the United States looks to resolve a war it began alongside Israel nearly six months ago.
Thousands have been killed in the war, which quickly drew in Gulf nations and shocked global markets as Iran flexed its ability to curb shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of the world’s traded oil before February.
The U.S. and Iran have twice announced ceasefire deals, in April and June, aiming to restore the free flow of shipping through Hormuz on a path towards ending the conflict, but both quickly crumbled even as Israel has largely withdrawn from the fighting.
In a social media message yesterday, Trump promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” although details were scant.
Read the full story here.
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